This is a sweet video. Walking through the assembly and QC process is very interesting -- especially details like the DIY model being built by taking apart the built model after QC and removing components. Makes sense, but would have never expected that! Very cool.
mfenniak
joined 1 year ago
I dunno; ChatGPT can create a pretty reasonable list of exceptions in about a minute, and that's 21st century technology. 🤣
I'm not really arguing that it's this simple. What I'm suggesting is that our 21st century laws are complicated, nuanced, and of course, imperfect. Therefore 24th century law shouldn't be simple and dumb. The exceptions to the prime directive exist whether society preconceives them or not -- or else I missed the seasons where Kirk and Picard were thrown in prison.
ChatGPT Prompt: Considering the Prime Directive in the Star Trek universe, create a list of exceptional situations where it is morally preferable to interfere in the natural development of another species. Write it in a legal format.
Response:
PREAMBLE: In light of the Prime Directive of the United Federation of Planets' Starfleet, also known as Starfleet General Order 1, that forbids interference with the internal development of pre-warp civilizations, the following exceptions are hereby proposed. These exceptions are founded on moral arguments and an overarching belief in the sanctity of sentient life and the preservation of universal stability.
SECTION 1: IMMINENT EXTINCTION
1.1. In the event a civilization, pre-warp or otherwise, faces imminent extinction due to a natural disaster such as an asteroid impact, supernova, planetary tectonic instability, or catastrophic climate change, intervention may be morally justified to prevent the total eradication of that species.
1.2. This exception will apply only if the intervention does not fundamentally alter the civilization's cultural or societal development, and is limited to the bare minimum necessary to prevent extinction.
SECTION 2: EPIDEMIC/PANDEMIC SITUATIONS
2.1. If a civilization is facing a severe epidemic or pandemic situation, especially one that poses a threat to the survival of the entire species, intervention may be considered permissible to provide medical assistance, and introduce technologies or strategies for containment and eradication of the disease.
2.2. This exception must be applied cautiously, ensuring that the intervention does not lead to significant cultural, societal or technological changes beyond the necessary medical intervention.
SECTION 3: SELF-DESTRUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY
3.1. In the event a civilization develops a technology that is directly causing irreversible harm to its people or its planet's sustainability without the civilization's understanding of the consequences, intervention may be ethically acceptable to prevent self-destruction.
3.2. This exception should be applied only when the civilization shows no signs of independently correcting its course, and intervention should aim to minimise the impact on societal development.
SECTION 4: THIRD PARTY INTERFERENCE
4.1. If it is discovered that another warp-capable civilization is intervening or has intervened in a way that disrupts the natural development of a pre-warp civilization, interference may be morally justifiable to undo or mitigate the effects of such interference.
4.2. The scope of intervention should be limited to restoring the status quo prior to the third party interference, while minimizing any additional influence on the civilization's development.
SECTION 5: ENSLAVEMENT
5.1. If a pre-warp civilization is under the enslavement or subjugation of a warp-capable civilization, or under the threat of such subjugation, intervention may be morally acceptable to liberate the enslaved civilization and prevent future enslavement.
5.2. This exception will apply only if non-intervention would lead to substantial harm or extinction of the civilization, and efforts should be made to minimize cultural and societal disruption.
CLOSING REMARKS: It must be noted that these exceptions are not to be used as justifications for arbitrary interference. Any decision to intervene should be a last resort, guided by a comprehensive understanding of the possible consequences and a commitment to minimize disruption. In all cases, the Prime Directive's spirit of non-interference and respect for the self-determination and autonomy of other species should prevail.
One of the concerns I have with the Prime Directive is that it is intended to avoid a "slippery slope" problem, and so it is a very black-and-white rule. Starfleet can't protect a developing civilization from a catastrophic planet-ending disaster... and the core reason is that "interference" can be a bad thing, so we won't ever do it.
There are clearly situations where interference in another civilization would be immoral. There are also clearly situations where it would be moral. We can't possibly figure out those situations and enshrine them into law? We do better today! Homicide is illegal, but there are exceptions like self-defense, and there are mitigating circumstances like causing an accidental death.
The Prime Directive should be much more complex.
Might not make for great TV, though.
Yeah... yeah, we could. Maybe we should. A couple hesitations -- (a) it makes merges and branches-of-branches difficult, and, (b) on a big PR you'd lose the ability to bisect into it. (b) is probably not a blocker because you'd have to have universally good commit hygiene to get the ability to do a rare thing -- cost vs. value doesn't align well. But (a) is a bit more of a headache.
Thanks for sharing!
I need more RPG material like I need another hole in my head, yet I keep buying it. 😬
Thanks for the kind words!
Nix is a learning curve. My recommendation for starting out would be using the tool "home-manager", by which you can declaratively install tools and configure your local user settings (eg. .ssh/config, .git/config). It's a good way to dip your toes without doing a full system replacement.
It lead me to rebuilding my desktop, laptop, and home server with NixOS eventually, so I guess it appealed to me at least. 😯 But it's probably not for everyone.
Great! git bisect is a magical tool... I only wish my coworkers wrote commits in a way that each of them were testable, rather than an uncompilable "WIP". 🤣 But not a problem with a project like Linux at least.
For good quality, I'd recommend Boyd's on 14th St SW - https://www.boydslobstershop.ca/
Not exactly sure that you'll find "good quality" and "isn't expensive" are compatible with each other...
I loved Everspace 2. I think if you enjoyed the gameplay of the first one, it's a good bet you'll enjoy it.
I think that the niche communities of reddit work well because of the huge number of people there to find enough niche participants. Lemmy isn't at that point yet.
I'm playing 5e; it's my first RPG. I've wanted to play D&D for most of my life and got a first group together about 6 months ago. Loving it. But I'm very interested in other systems in the future.
PF2e seems great for being similar in style, but having a deep tactical system for combat.
Star Trek Adventurers excites me for giving me a system to be a part of my favourite universe. I've always wanted to be in Starfleet!
And on a very different side of the spectrum, Fate seems to be a game that takes all the tactical RPG elements and throws them out, leaving just the juicy roleplay, characters, and world building. I wonder if the absence of any solid system will leave it a little... "vague"... but I think it would appeal to some players.
Since you can order the DIY without any parts (I did), I'd guess they have some standard test parts that they cycle through each batch. Or something like that. That's an interesting question with the mainboard...